Question: Do or should people get what they deserve?

"Our Father who art in heaven

Hallowed be your name

Your Kingdom come, your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven

Give us this day our daily bread 

And forgive us our debts

As we forgive our debtors

Deliver us not into the time of trial

But deliver us from the evil one."  (Jesus in Matthew 6)

The beauty of this verse is that in the original Greek text, the word translated for the word debt is aphiemi, which precisely means a monetary debt. (Politics, page 62)  The reason that I included the Lord's Prayer is to give a practical demonstration that people are sometimes in debt because of their own choices and because humans are enslaved to the social system which needs to oppress in order to create wealth and Jesus is attempting to draw forgiveness together to create a mutual bond of relationship.

I had a great conversation with someone this week concerning the question of whether people get what they deserve.  Since also writing the beginning section of this post, I heard an Easter Sunday Sermon on the absolute-ness of God's law which is interpreted to mea; when we do evil we will, "Get evil", but if we do good we should, "Get good."  This always begs the question what do people deserve?  If we look at the word deserve from the perspective of the universality of God, then we believe that people deserve God and they deserve God's love, God's trust, God's provision, and God's mercy.  We as humans are created in the image of God, should reflect these traits and characteristics of God's image. 

The Reformation and a strict hyper-Calvinistic viewpoint, has transformed total depravity into we deserve total depravity. Holding the tension between the theological doctrine of "Total Depravity" which attempts to explain human sinfulness, gets enmeshed with the fascination in America of individual choice and combines the two, making it seem as though we choose total depravity, instead of understanding it as something which we in some ways have ignorantly participated in, and God wants us to know we deserve life, peace, and wholeness.

The process to obtain life, peace, and wholeness, i.e. the kingdom of God, will always come at a heavy price, which is how we should see the cross of Christ. When Christians as the body of Christ, not as individuals, but as a community of faith are calling people, structures, systems, and evil what it is, then we should expect some resistance, which is why non-violence must be at the core of the mission, because once we are persecuted, it becomes very easy to pick up violence to defend our cause.  Non-violent resistance also allows humans to directly stand against oppressive systems, without directly destroying the system itself or the people within the system.  People need systems to live and it is not the boundaries of the system which are the problem, but how the implementation of the boundaries against certain groups which should be seen as the problem. This can be seen as one of the most tantamount historical issues within America and American Christianity, especially in reference to African slavery (a shutting a people group out of the God given benefits of the earth).  

This issue is at its core an issue of the domination system of power, in which people incorporate all the various forms of power within their system and do not allow others to possess any forms of power.  Once I have attained all the various forms of power, I am not static, but fluid and moving, therefore, I will implement these power forms in order to retain my power through suppression of another. Christians need to recognize these forms of power and how they develop.  For a Christian, morality is a form of power which has too many times been wielded like a sword over another, who is deemed immoral. That is never what the gospel is intended to do.

The person from the first conversation stated that when a human violates "laws", i.e. the American Criminal Laws or as he generalized them; "God's laws", that person reaps what they sow and get what they deserve.  Although I believe that reaping and sowing is what humans work toward; such as sowing goodness into our families, communities, nations, and hearts, I believe that from a Christian perspective I would vehemently say, "The gospel is good news and is specifically designed 'against' people getting what they deserve."  First, I would say that the word, "deserve" specifically needs a little unpacking.  At the core of a statement such as, "Everyone gets what they deserve", is strong group identification.  To make the previous statement implicitly means that I am identifying not as an individual, but within a group, because there is no other way for me to know whether I am one of the people who is deserving of what I get, unless my group claims to be on the side of rightness.  We also desperately need to see ourselves as always implementing our theology, so if we claim we all get what we deserve, and believe in the total sinfulness of humans as being what we deserve, then next step is to secure the label of "deserving depravity" and begin to implement it, i.e. the Prison Industrial Complex.

The theological implications of this type of system of Christianity as mentioned above is wrought full of karma and as I call it, Jeffersonian ethics, i.e. God helps those who help themselves, which really means that we are all simply Deists and God exists in a world which has nothing to do with our world, I can do it myself.  Karma seems to be something which helps people to put a framework around our daily lives.  If I  work hard, do good, and treat people well I will reap the benefits.  Although I do not think that we should not participate in the above mentioned activities, but these activities need to be situated around the, "life, peace, and wholeness" or the kingdom of God.  Common Sense will tell people that they should treat people well to get benefits or work hard to get benefits, but the problem is that within the structure of the kingdom the "benefits, benefit" all the wrong people.  The lazy, the poor, the tax collectors, and those wretched totally depraved people, who are depraved simply by being oppressed within the current system which has told them that they have gotten what they deserve, because it actually benefits those who hold power to tell make people feel inferior.

As I am currently reading John Howard Yoder's, The Politics of Jesus, he speaks at length about the bringing forth of this kingdom of God, which should be seen contained within the practices of the 1st Century.  Yoder talks at length that Jesus brought forth the Jubilee Year, whereby the debts were canceled and the slaves set free.  "Jesus was establishing a strict equation between the practice of jubilee and the grace of God." (Politics, page 62) This kingdom language needs to be something which becomes real to us, in that it means the rule or reign of God is brought near and God's reign always effects our economic practices. Yoder calls to remembrance that a problematic issue contained within the book of Jeremiah was that Israel participated in the oppression of the slaves and the poor.  The Israelite community had not released the people from their debts, even after the sabbatical year and when Jeremiah speaks against these unjust practices, King Josiah institutes God's law and releases people from their debts. After the slaves were released, the Israelite community reneged on the sabbatical year and re-enslaved them.  Why would Israel commit these actions?I personally believe that nothing causes people to fear more than economics, because people begin to fear for their survival, even if the justification for survival is completely absurd.  

We have seen within the context of Jeremiah and Isaiah how the practices of cult religion (Baal worship) directly affected the poor.  We also have a direct trace between the social/economic practices of the 1st Century and people's decisions.  It is difficult speaking with people who think that decisions are not created at all, but we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Israel was commanded by God to teach the Shema (the community prayer), "Hear Oh Israel, the Lord is one..." to their children and children's children. Jeremiah 2 speaks directly about the people, "following after worthless idols and becoming worthless themselves", i.e. the people become ineffective in displaying God's love to each other and other nations.  God obviously places importance upon the communal aspects of life.  Even after everything Israel had done, God continually will NOT give them what God determined that they deserve. Jeremiah 31 is a beautiful illustration of God's provision for those who have, "gotten what they deserve."  God says he will, 'build them up, he will have compassion, he will not forget their pain, and he will bind the broken-hearted.' 

Along the same lines as, "Do people get what they deserve?" we also need to look at one of the major theological inquiries over the past four thousand years, "Is God angry or not concerning these practices?"  "Is God an angry God?" If we understand that the full manifestation of God is found within the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and we believe that God wants to bring forth life, peace, and wholeness, then we could say that God deeply cares for his world and how our practices directly and indirectly affect other people.  Jesus demonstrates that we all have an interdependence with one another and that our practices, whether "good or evil", will affect people.  This would be the point of karma that I agree with, yet we must never let karma be the final word.  I tend to see God as manifest in love, therefore, I would say that although God can be manifest in anger, God is usually angry at the certain evil practices that we as humans participate in, which in turn moulds us into the very image of evil itself.  So, God is not against humans, but against the evil which enslaves human beings.  I think we need to use language such as enslaving, because we can not participate with practices which enslave.  Evil is part of the human condition, but God is against this evil which enslaves people, rather than the people themselves.  

We also have a tendency to speak in absolutes, but this also is not an absolute, because once a human takes and manipulates evil to gain authority and power, then wields it over another through violence, I would not say that God has no concern about this individual's practices.  Jesus specifically on one occasion called converts of the Pharisees, "...twice the son of hell that you are." (Matthew 23.15)  The Pharisee has now taught the disciple to also oppress, causing repentance to be needed on both ends of the spectrum, which is a travesty of justice.

This was a blinding statement directed against the Pharisees practices, who manipulated and used their position as religious authorities to control their converts.  Being a disciple of a Pharisee or Rabbi in the 1st Century is something which a young man coveted and the Pharisees understood this knowledge very well.  The Pharisees would place heavy burdens upon the young converts, which was not reflected in their own practices.  Of course we do not see these practices reflected today within our own churches or traditions.  Jesus understood the social implications of placing expectations upon another person, which were almost impossible to fulfill.  When a person is subjected to an oppressive system, the person under oppression will usually not become "like" the oppressor, but will become even worse than the original oppressive regime.  "Victims need to repent of the fact that all too often they mimic the behavior of the oppressors, let themselves be shaped into the mirror image of the enemy...without repentance for these sins, the full human dignity of victims will not be restored and needed social change will not take place." (Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, page 117) We as human beings have a tendency to either over-react or under-react to systems of oppression.  I though would struggle with allowing a person who was attempting to justify the oppressive system say that the victims are as guilty as the oppressors, but within the cycle of oppression, Volf knows that they too will one day be more guilty than the ones they oppress.   

This conversation started with an attempt to understand if a person gets what they deserve.  I also believe that somehow through the process of simplification in order to understand our world, we have associated deserving with choice ,but if we as Christians affirm a deep rooted theology of evil, which affects people, structures, the world itself, then why do we attempt to shift blame away from the evil onto the human?  Scripture attempts to portray evil as something which ensnares by trickery and deceit.  People throughout the generations have been confronted with the problem of evil and although over the past millenium, evil has taken on a global form as technology has developed, placing all the responsibility upon the shoulders of any one person is a dangerous venture.  This will inevitably create a victim rage spiral whereby even the perpetuator of injustice could view themselves as victims, recreating the horrific climate of evil all over again.  Focusing upon the evil through the structures that it perpetuates will allow for freedom to emerge, not destroying the people and hopefully liberating them into the beauty of reconciliation.